Data centers and other facilities that house sensitive electronic equipment, including computer equipment, network equipment, and telecommunication equipment, among others must be maintained in a carefully controlled environment. This equipment often contains sensitive components, such as circuit boards and processors that may not function properly in undesirable environments. For example, excessive heat, including the heat generated by the equipment itself, may cause the sensitive components to malfunction or fail. Similarly, excessive moisture may cause corrosion and other problems for the equipment. As such, the air temperature and humidity are often monitored and controlled to ensure proper operation of the equipment.
Typically, the data centers rely on various heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and machinery to control the environment around the electronic equipment. The HVAC systems typically require a large amount of energy to run and therefore present a significant overhead cost to data center operators. Often, the HVAC systems provide more cooling than necessary at various times and locations within the facility. As such, the excess cooling provided by the HVAC units leads to additional unnecessary expense.
Previous efforts to develop control systems for automatically controlling the operation of the HVAC systems have resulted in systems that may shut down one or more HVAC units based on a time schedule. Other systems rely on a network of sensors to monitor and control various HVAC units. These sensor networks, however, are often integrated in the facility and cannot easily be retrofitted, retasked, moved, etc., to alter the operation of an existing system.
Another drawback for many existing HVAC control systems is that they indiscriminately shutdown HVAC units without considering the costs, in terms of power required to start-up and run the units. As such, these systems fail to account for the operational efficiency of the HVAC units and may shut down an efficient unit instead of an underperforming energy inefficient unit.
Therefore, there exists a need for an HVAC control system that may be more easily retrofitted to existing data centers or facilities. In addition, a need exists for an HVAC control system that can automatically monitor and determine which HVAC units are operating at an energy-inefficient level, as well as automatically shutting down the inefficient units to increase the overall energy efficiency of the entire facility and reduce overhead costs.